While it does not glisten, Chinatown is increasingly becoming fashionable, with young Argentines. Some local libraries even offer free Mandarin language classes, financed with Chinese money, as part of the country's quiet "soft power" in the region.

The West’s Soft Power was presumed to have helped win the Cold War. But there have been few attempts to measure soft power and this is the age of measurement. Now we have a very thought-provoking attempt from the Institute of Government (a private NGO) and Monocle magazine. The full report gives a sound review of soft power theory and the Index used to rank countries.

Since 2007, Cambodia has seen a rapid increase in cultural investments from China. China’s projection of soft power is generally limited to language training and the marketing of cultural products such as books and movies, and the long-term effect on the foreign policy of recipient countries has yet to be determined.

The rise in emerging market (EM) hard power over the past decade has been dramatic. The crucial question that arises then is whether soft power in the emerging world has risen commensurately to its hard power. If it has, then the combination of rising soft and hard power will give many EM countries more global clout.

Since the start of the 21st century, using pandas as a diplomatic tool has become increasingly passé, according to Woo. China now uses other forms of soft power to export its culture and influence abroad.

America lost its soft power once it used its hard power against Iraq. The global standing of the US suffered tremendously as the war dragged on, with hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties and the revelation of atrocities committed by American troops against civilians and prisoners.

How does culture sell a nation? Monocle and the V&A host a lively discussion on museums as soft-power ambassadors, with panellists including nation branding expert Simon Anholt, the senior French heritage curator Lurence de Cars and the Minister of State at the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

After the Dalai Lama fled Chinese-controlled Tibet to India in 1959, several key monks of Tibet have followed suit. “The presence of all the religious heads of Tibet on Indian soil gives India a kind of power that China cannot match... India hosts the emotional and cultural core of a vast part of Chinese territory,” said Tsering Phuntsok of Norbulingka Institute for preservation of Tibetan culture.